Canada’s 275,000 seal slaughter begins

Friday, March 28, 2008

The Canadian seal hunt - the largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world - got underway in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Canada, today (Friday 28 March) as animal welfare campaigners looked to the European Commission to act swiftly and decisively to help put an end the annual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the 1983 European Union legislation banning the import of fur from whitecoats (newly born harp seal pups) into the EU. Seals are now killed once their whitecoats begin to moult, from around 12 days old.  The European Commission is currently revisiting the issue after Members of the European Parliament voted overwhelming in favour of a trade ban in September 2006.

Mark Glover, Director of UK based Respect for Animals, who is in Canada to document the hunt, said today:

“Despite widespread revulsion at this annual slaughter the Canadian government continues to condone this brutal hunt. This year alone it has sanctioned the killing of up to 275,000 pups by clubbing or shooting to death over the next few weeks. 

“I have witnessed the hunt for the last four years and have seen the most horrendous sights, seals being bludgeoned, stuck and dragged with hooks then skinned.”

Glover continued: “Twenty-five years after the European Union first acted and saved countless seal pups, the sealers now cynically get around the European trade ban by waiting just a few days before killing the seal pups.  The EU must now act again, taking swift and decisive action to close down markets for the skins of these young defenceless pups, once and for all. Until it does we all have the blood of the seals on our hands.”

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